Midnight Crossing: A Mystery

by Tricia Fields

  Josie felt her face flush. She would have liked to have said, Shut the hell up. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Instead, she said, “At least he was a son of a bitch. My mother was nothing. When my dad died, that was it. I was eight years old and she shut down on me.”

  “She couldn’t cope. I see it all the time. Some people don’t have that coping mechanism.”

  She raised a hand to stop him. “I’m done, Nick. She’s here. I’ll deal with her. But I don’t want to talk about her parenting skills right now.”

  They sat for a moment without talking. Josie wished the TV was on, but it wasn’t, and if she turned it on it would feel like she was silencing him. This was the part of relationships that she disliked. Always second-guessing herself, tensing up over her inability to do the right thing, or even knowing what the right thing was.

  “Look. We’re no good at this. Right?” Nick asked.

  She turned to look at him. “At what?”

  “At this. At talking about”—he shrugged—“whatever this is.”

  She sighed. “I think you’re right. We should probably quit talking before we say something that gets us into a fight.”

  He grinned. “Exactly. We’re no good at whatever this is. So let’s skip it.”

  “Skip it,” she repeated.

  “That’s what I said. You’re getting mad. I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. So we skip it and go to bed. You give me a back rub. I’ll give you a foot rub. And then we go to bed happy instead of mad.”

  “You could be a marriage counselor.”

  “Call me Dr. Nick.”

  * * *

  Once they finally made it to bed they skipped the back and foot rubs. Nick curled around Josie’s body and they both settled into an almost instant sleep. Until Josie awoke with the same jolt she’d experienced the previous two nights. She’d intended to tell Nick, but had forgotten with her mom’s visit.

  As she lay in a tangled mess of sheets, trapped under Nick’s leg, Josie’s skin prickled and her body was suddenly covered in a thin sheen of sweat. She pulled her leg from under Nick’s and rolled over on her back to focus on the sound. Across the room the clock on the bureau read 2:13 a.m. She was certain it was the same person coming down the gravel road.

  She laid her hand on Nick’s arm, which was stretched out beside her. “Nick,” she whispered.

  She felt the instant flex of muscle in his forearm, an automatic response from too many years of working in law enforcement. “What’s the matter?” His voice was hoarse with sleep but already worried.

  “Do you hear the car coming down the road?”

  He propped himself up on an elbow, and they both lay completely still, listening through the open bedroom windows to the faraway engine.

  “I hear it,” he said. “What’s the problem?”

  “People don’t come down this road at two in the morning. It’s just Dell and me. This is the third night in a row I’ve heard it.”

  Nick rolled out of bed, stepped into his jeans, and grabbed his pistol off the nightstand in one smooth motion. Josie slipped a T-shirt and shorts on, grabbed her Beretta, and shoved her bare feet into a pair of work boots beside the door. She quietly shut the bedroom door so that Chester wouldn’t follow them, and walked behind Nick down the hallway. In the living room she placed her hand on his back.

  “Let’s go out the back door,” she whispered.

  Nick put on his boots while she disengaged the alarm system and they stepped outside.

  The night spread before her in black and gray shapes, making depth perception difficult. From where she was standing ten feet from Nick, his form was clear, but the features of his face were not. Without a word she took off walking around one side of the house and Nick took the other. She held her Beretta at the ready position, her right hand gripping the gun, her trigger finger extended along the side, and her left hand held underneath to support.

  She hugged the side of her house, controlling her breathing as she saw the headlights appear around the curve of Schenck Road. The headlights went off.

  Josie and Nick both reached the front of the house at the same time and crouched behind his black SUV, an armored vehicle necessary for his job. She wanted to run to the side of the road to catch the make and model of the car, but the driver was driving slow enough to signify he was looking for something or someone and might have night vision gear.

  “We need to stay behind the SUV. There’s nothing for cover out in the front yard,” she whispered. “The best we can hope for is to see where they slow down. Maybe we’ll narrow down what they’re searching for.”

  “If shots are fired, you get back inside and arm the security system. I have my car.”

  She didn’t argue. Like it or not, since serving as her negotiator in a kidnapping case the year before, Nick automatically assumed the lead role when it came to any safety issue. Eventually she would confront him about this, but now wasn’t the time or place to take it on.

  About five hundred feet from Josie’s house the car slowed to a crawl. As it rolled by she heard the gravel crunch under the wheels. She could only make out the shape of the car as a mid-sized vehicle. The front passenger window was open. She could see moonlight reflected off the back passenger windows, and the front windows appeared completely black, which meant someone had turned off the dashboard lights. She was too far away to see shapes in the car.

  Then the car passed by her house, and as it reached the pasture containing Dell’s cattle, it stopped. For almost a full minute they watched the car sit idling. It finally pulled away, heading in the same direction, and rolled along for a quarter mile, then the lights were turned back on and the car picked up speed.

  “You heard the car last night too?” Nick asked, his voice remaining low.

  “This is the third night. Last night I got up and watched it roll by about the same time, and do the exact same thing—slowing down and killing the lights.”

  “Why didn’t you call me last night?” he asked.

  “There wasn’t anything to call about.”

  He didn’t respond and Josie switched topics.

  “It’s odd the car didn’t stop in front of the house. It continued on toward the pasture. It didn’t last night either. It makes me think they aren’t after me. Maybe the kayaks you saw down by the river really are coyotes crossing. They’re just too stupid to realize a cop lives here. Maybe they lost someone crossing through the pasture.”

  “A coyote’s not going to spend three nights in a row looking for a lost traveler. They already got their money. They couldn’t care less if someone gets lost.”

  “I forgot to mention, I found a baggie with crumbs in it under my tire this morning. Looked like someone’s sandwich bag.”

  She could see him shrug, like it didn’t make sense to him.

  “Maybe a load got lost,” Josie said.

  “They wouldn’t be cruising by a pasture if they thought dope was lying out there. They’d have boots on the ground.” He pointed at the place along the road where the car stopped and they both started walking toward it.

  Josie heard a sound coming from behind her on the front porch and put out her hand to stop Nick. “You hear that?” she whispered.

  He shook his head. They were standing near the end of the driveway. She switched on her flashlight and shone it back at the house and around her jeep and Nick’s SUV.

  They crept between the vehicles and up to the front of the house. The front porch was the length of the house, about ten feet deep and thirty-five feet long, with just one low step that ran the length of it. Josie shone her light along the porch, from left to right, to the far right corner where there was a chair, and froze.

  She held her light steady on what appeared to be a person, hunched up into a ball and hiding behind the chair. Nick made a move forward and Josie grabbed his hand. “Stop,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I’m the cop. This is my jurisdiction here. You need to back off.”

 
He hesitated but pulled back without a word.

  Josie took a step forward and called out, “This is Police Chief Josie Gray. I’m coming up to talk to you. Can you tell me your name?”

  There was no response.

  Josie stayed off the porch, walking through the sandy front yard, carefully avoiding the cactus plantings and landscape boulders. When she reached the end of the house she could see the person was female, with her legs pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Long black hair fell over her shoulders and on both sides of her legs. She was wearing ankle boots, shorts, and a T-shirt.

  “I’d like for you to nod your head if you can hear me,” she said.

  Josie took a few steps closer. Her gun was still drawn, but held down to her side so she wouldn’t alarm the woman if she suddenly looked up.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Josie stepped onto the porch and the woman flinched, pressing her balled-up body farther into the corner.

  Josie pulled her cell phone out of her shorts pocket and called Brian Moore, the night dispatcher for the PD. “Brian, it’s Josie. Is Marta available?”

  “Yes, ma’am. She’s sitting at the intake desk doing paperwork. You need her?”

  “I do. I also want you to call the sheriff’s department. Send backup to my address.”

  “Emergency?”

  “Yes.”

  “Injuries?”

  “No. But I need backup as a precaution.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Hold the line.”

  “Hang on. Who’s on duty at the sheriff’s department?”

  “Dave Phillips.”

  “Tell him we have a possible immigration issue. Let me talk to Marta.”

  Seconds later Marta came on the line.

  “I’m on my front porch. There’s a female, most likely in her teens or twenties by the way she’s dressed, curled up in the corner. She hasn’t spoken yet.”

  Marta broke in. “I’m walking out the PD now. Headed that way.”

  “Okay. Brian said he’d send Dave Phillips too.” Josie went on to describe the car that had driven by her house and stopped. “Obviously someone’s looking for this person. I’m guessing it’s an immigration issue or a domestic. Just keep an eye out for any other cars on your way out here. If you see a mid-sized car as you approach Schenck Road, follow it and call me immediately. There shouldn’t be anyone out here this time of night. Got it?”

  “Will do. Be there in ten.”

  Josie slipped her phone back in her pocket and shone the flashlight on the porch floor so she wouldn’t spotlight the girl. She crouched down and lowered her voice.

  “Don’t be afraid. I’m going to scoot the chair out of the way so we can talk. Okay?”

  When the woman didn’t answer, Josie reached out and slowly dragged the chair from her. As the wood scraped across the wooden decking she cringed again, burrowing her head down farther like a child attempting to hide.

  Josie turned back to Nick, who was standing just behind her watching. “Would you get a bottle of water out of the refrigerator?” she asked.

  He left and Josie stood again, taking small steps until she was directly in front of the woman. “My name’s Josie. Can you tell me your name?”

  Josie continued to ask questions and converse quietly, trying to establish herself as someone friendly who wanted to help. When Nick came back and handed her the water, she opened the lid and held it toward the woman. “Water?” She repeated the word in Spanish.

  Josie touched the water bottle to the woman’s arm. She flinched but raised her head enough to peer at Josie. Her eyes were wide and unfocused. Josie heard Nick make a sound behind her. She knew that he’d seen the look too many times through years of negotiations, but seeing a person in that kind of pain never got easier to take.

  “She’s in shock,” he said.

  When the woman heard his voice she cried out as if slapped and buried her head again, dropping the water bottle onto the porch. Josie set the water upright and turned to Nick. “I hate to think what’s happened to her. Can you wait out by the car, and I’ll try and get her inside?”

  Josie continued speaking in a soothing voice, and eventually knelt beside the woman and placed a hand on her back, rubbing slowly, trying to calm her. The woman finally raised her head again at the mention of water. As she closed her eyes and drank half the bottle, water dripping down her face, Josie was able to study her for signs of abuse.

  Josie figured she was in her late teens to early twenties, with dark brown eyes, black hair, and full lips. Her clothes were not typical of someone crossing the desert. Noticing her reaction to Nick’s voice, she wondered if she was looking at a horrible domestic situation. Maybe the woman had come to Josie’s house knowing that a female police officer lived here.

  Josie put a hand out and tried to get the woman to stand but she seemed too terrified to move. Josie pointed to the living room window.

  “Let’s go inside. You’re safe now. I promise.” Josie reached down and slid her arm underneath the girl’s and slowly pulled her up. “No one is going to hurt you here. We just want to help you.”

  Josie helped the girl inside the house and sat her at the end of the couch, where she once again pulled her legs up and hugged her arms around them. Josie took a blanket that lay over the top of a chair and wrapped it around the woman’s shoulders.

  She sat next to her on the couch and said, “The car that drove in front of the house. Was it looking for you?”

  She began crying and Josie was hopeful that she spoke at least some English.

  “Are there other people with you?”

  She whimpered like a child and finally looked out the front door and in the general direction of where the car had stopped on the road.

  “Is there someone outside?”

  She closed her eyes as if she wasn’t able to stand the image.

  “Are the people who hurt you back there?”

  Nothing.

  “Is someone else back there? In the pasture?”

  The woman sobbed at the question and Josie pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and called the night dispatcher. “Brian, this is Josie. Call Border Patrol. Call Otto too and tell him I need him out here. I don’t know what’s going on, but I want to be prepared.”

  Brian told her Marta was on her way and should be there within five minutes. Phillips, from the sheriff’s department, was on a call but would be there within twenty minutes. “I talked to Sheriff Martinez. He’s on his way as well.”

  Several minutes later Marta Cruz pulled up. Josie introduced her to the girl, who remained curled up on the couch and under the blanket. Marta sat beside the woman and placed an arm on her back, trying to reassure her while Josie briefed her on the situation and gave her instructions. “I’d like you to stay with her while I arrange a group of officers to search the pasture beside the house.”

  * * *

  Outside, Josie found Nick pulling a flak jacket from the back of his vehicle. “Let’s have a look around the house,” he said.

  “Not until we have help. I just asked for support from Border Patrol but don’t have an ETA. Otto’s on his way. So are Deputy Dave Phillips and Sheriff Roy Martinez. We’ll partner up and head out when they arrive. We’ll each have an officer. I’ll leave one man posted at the house.”

  Nick nodded. “How long?”

  “We should have everyone here in twenty minutes.”

  * * *

  Josie called Dell to fill him in. It was three o’clock in the morning. He answered after the first ring.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I need to make you aware of a situation. Nick is here. We heard a car drive by at about two this morning. This is the third night I’ve heard it. Nick and I went outside to check things out and watched it stop in front of your pasture.”

  “They get out of the car?” he asked.

  “No, it just sat idling along the road. After it pulled away we found a young woman hiding on my front porch. P
hysically she’s okay, but she’s terrified. She can’t speak. I’d guess whoever was in the car was hunting her.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  “No. Don’t leave your house. Stay indoors with the lights out and gun ready until you hear otherwise. I don’t know who might be out here right now.”

  “You have backup with you?”

  “I do. We’ll fan out in groups. I’ll call you back as soon as I know something more.” She paused and he didn’t say anything. “Everything okay?”

  “I ought to be out there helping you. At least checking my pasture.”

  Josie sighed. “Dell, please. Promise me you’ll stay put. We can’t be worrying about running into you while we’re outside. You could accidentally get shot.”

  “All right, then,” he said. Not one to sit idle, he was clearly frustrated. “You let me know what you find.”

  * * *

  Sheriff Roy Martinez was a burly retired Marine Corps sergeant. Roy spent most of his time running the jail and dealing with the dramas that come with supervising staff and criminals, but Josie trusted him as a solid officer.

  Josie reintroduced Nick to Otto, Roy, and Phillips, who knew him as the kidnapping negotiator who had helped recover Josie’s ex-boyfriend. They also knew Nick by reputation as one of the best negotiators in northern Mexico. He had brought home an Arizona state senator after a nationally publicized kidnapping two years before.

  Josie quickly briefed the group on the situation. “Let’s get our cars facing the road with lights on. We’ll travel in the dark, but I want whoever was stalking my house to think twice about driving up here while we’re out on foot. Marta will remain at the house with the victim. I’d like to leave Phillips positioned by the house to watch for anyone approaching the area. I’ll take Nick with me. Roy, you and Otto work together?”

  “You bet,” Roy said.

  “We’ll fan out in a line, about a hundred feet between each of us. At the back of the property Nick and I will head to the base of the mountain. You two check Dell’s barn and around his house.”